Skatepark success in Ipswich

Big Local collaboration with statutory partners

January 2016

By Marion Ransby, North West
Ipswich Big Local partnership member

After consultation with our
community, North West Ipswich Big Local made supporting young people a priority.
So when the local council asked us to contribute towards a skatepark in our area we wanted
to support it.

But myself and Lorraine, another member of the Big Local partnership, decided
we didn’t know anything about skateparks and certainly not enough to vote in
favour of contributing up to a tenth of our £1m to the project. So we started a journey of learning, visiting other Big Local areas and gathering views- even getting skaters on the skatepark project team.

Getting started

Our first decision was to go to
Bury St Edmunds to view their recently built skatepark. We went armed with our clipboards to seek the
views of skaters and others involved in the project. We were able to come back to our Big Local group with a
host of comments from users and the group who run it, not least the cost of the
Bury park. We also googled skateparks
and read many reports on similar projects.

Armed with that information we
were able to put to our Big Local group a realistic view on what sort of skatepark we
could get for the money, which persuaded a few who were at first a bit sceptical
about the whole idea that it would be a good sustainable investment for our
community. We signed on the dotted
line to release the funding.

We also pressed for Big Local to have places on the council’s project
team for the skatepark. Myself, Lorraine and our Big Local chair, Ron, all
joined.

Our main priority at the meetings was to get the best value for the
skatepark both in terms of design and cost. As far as we could see, no one on
the project team had any professional experience of building a skatepark and
although many were experts in their particular field, none were skaters. We also thought the initial community survey
which the council had commissioned didn’t answer all our questions. So we decided
to do our own survey, really just to double check we were going down the right
path in spending £100K.

Gathering local opinions

We hit the streets and spoke to
parents outside the various school gates and residents in our local shopping
area. The response was almost 100% in
favour with a few residents stating it would increase anti-social
behaviour. We had already got an answer
to that one having asked the local police and crime commissioner for his views:
he backed up our research findings, which was that skateparks actually reduce
anti-social behaviour.

We then put out on social media
that we needed some help from the local skating community and invited
interested parties to a meeting to discuss (pictured right).

An amazing number of experienced skaters turned up, full of ideas for the
project.

Getting the plans approved

During the planning process
there were challenges but we stuck with it and took mitigating measures for
example to reduce the possible noise nuisance. Lorraine and I attended a planning committee meeting at the council and
Lorraine gave an impassioned speech on the benefits the skatepark would bring
to our young people by way of a healthy outdoor activity and increasing their
aspirations in what is a relatively deprived area. All
the councillors on the committee applauded her.

The launch!

The launch day was something
else! It was a very emotional day for us
when we saw the delight on the young people’s faces as they crowded onto the
skatepark with the Mayor and our local vicar to cut the ribbon. We managed to get front page in the local press and interviews on BBC Radio Suffolk and TV.

The skatepark has been in
constant use since then and the whole community young and old have remarked
what an outstanding success it is.

Our local councillors are very
proud of our input and the Big Local partnership just got invited to the Mayor’s parlour
for afternoon tea in recognition of all the volunteer hours we gave to the
project.

Now the skatepark is built
Lorraine and I are exploring, with the Ipswich Borough Council project leader, the setting up of a ‘Friends
of Whitehouse Park’ group which will be constituted and able to raise funding
for additional work to support and develop the park even further and add to the
sustainability of the project.

Before:

After:

Reflections on collaboration

Working with the council was in
my opinion a steep learning curve for both sides. We trawled through many spreadsheets and
information provided by the experts, not afraid to question on what we didn’t
understand. We stuck to our guns on issues which as residents we knew were
important to our neighbourhood. I think that
both sides learnt a lot and I hope that our example will mean that groups such
as ours will be respected in the decision making process for their communities
in future.